Bethinking

my Brown Eyed Girl

Things I learnt about myself while making this Scrapbook page:

• I'm so much better working with paper than with a needle and thread.
• Hand stitching looks great, but takes a long time.
• Colouring in with watercolour crayons is very fun
• The flourish from "Baroque Motifs" is fairly fiddly to cut out.
• I love these ribbon flowers (shame they require some sewing!)
• This photo of Annabelle reminds me so much of my Dad that's it's uncanny
• I love this craft: creating layouts of memories that I can share with my children is wonderful.

 

Supplies Used

Stamps: Baroque Motifs, Jumbo Outline alpha, Schoolbook serif alpha

Cardstock: Pink Pirouette, Very Vanilla, Candy Lane DSP, Au Chocolat DSP (retired)

Accessories: Prettis Kit pearls, Scallop edge punch and Eyelet border punch, Corner rounder punch, Ribbon, Buttons, Chipboard, Cystal Effects, Watercolour crayons, needle and thread

Baroque Christmas

Now I know that Baroque Motifs is not strictly speaking a Christmas stamp set, but I hope that this page goes to show that anything in shades of Red & Green can look Christmasy, so really, your stamp sets are more versatile than you might have originally thought!

This was a pretty straightforward page to make. I stamped the Baroque flourish in 2 different colours (River Rock and Old Olive) onto Very Vanilla cardstock, then randomly stamped the small flower from the same set in Real Red.

I did the title using the Big Deal Alphabet, but instead of an O I used one of the bigger flowers from Baroque Motifs, and inked it up in River Rock first, then added some highlights with my Old Olive marker. For a bit of bling, I punched out some photo corners and decorated them with Dazzling Diamonds glitter. A bit of Vanilla wide grosgrain ribbon and all done!

Baroque Motifs is one of the stamp sets being sold this month to help the Red Cross Bushfire Appeal. It's $39.95, and 70% of that price goes to the Red Cross. So far, Stampin' Up! has raised over $34,000 through its Bushfire Appeal sales, so thanks to everyone who's purchased stamps to help the Red Cross!

Just Because

It's Valentine's Day next week. I'm sure you all know that, and whether you're someone who gets into the Valentine's Day thing and goes all out for your loved one, or someone who figures that it's all just commercial hype, it's still nice to tell someone that you love them. Just because.

Supplies Used

Stamps: A Happy Heart, Life Definitions, Baroque Motifs

Colours: Regal Rose, Rose Red, Basic Black

Accessories: Regal Rose and Basic Black ribbon, clear embossing powder, 3/4" circle punch.

Beate's Sketch Challenge

There's some great card sketches on the Web if you know where to find them. One great place is Beate's Blog. Every weekend Beate puts up a sketch challenge. They're always great sketches, but this is the first time I've ever finished one in time to actually post it within the deadline!

So, here's my first card, which I was pretty happy with. Scribble This is my all time favourite stamp set, and I love how it looks coloured in and glittered - not that you can really see the glitter in the photo!

I decided to use the sketch to make a Christmas card as well, as I'm trying out some different colour combinations and layouts for Christmas stuff. I still like the layout, but I wasn't sure if this one was "Christmassy" enough - what do you think? 

Stamping Transparencies

Transparencies and Acetate products are pretty trendy in Scrapbooking at the moment. I love using them and they're great products to alter slightly using stamping. On this layout, I wanted to use Heidi Swapp ghost letters for their transparent quality, but I also wanted them to have a design on them. What to do? Solution: stamp them, of course!

For the stamping I used my StazOn black ink, and the flourish from the Baroque Motifs stamp set. The letters are a bit slippery, so you have to hold the stamp firmly and be careful not to smudge the image when you stamp. StazOn is great, though, because it can be used on so many different surfaces.

I also stamped the same image onto a clear Stampin' Up! button. Here's some close up pictures so that you get a better idea of the effect:      

The butterfly was for a different page, but it was stamped in the same way with a stamp from the Priceless set.

All products are Stampin' Up!, except the Heidi Swapp ghost letters and butterfly!

Birthday Happiness

This is a birthday card for a friend - can you guess what her favourite colour might be? I really wanted the red to be the focus, so I thought I'd partner it just with black and white.

I've used the swirl from Baroque Motifs for the black background, and it's been stamped with white and embossed with white powder, so that it's shiny and raised. This also gives the card some texture! The word "Happiness" is from the Happiness background stamp - I've just used one strip of the stamped image. It's a pretty versatile background stamp - you can either use it all together, or just ink up one part of it with your markers, or stamp the whole thing then cut out the strip you want.

The flowers and pearls are from the Pretties kit - obviously I've dyed the main one red to match the rest of the card.

Happy Birthday

It's my Mum's birthday today, so this card is for her! It uses the new "Bloomin' with Beauty" stamp set from the Spring Mini Catalogue. This set has beautiful images for watercolouring, so I've used it on Watercolour paper with StazOn, then coloured it with Regal Rose, Rose Red, So Saffron and Certainly Celery inkpads and an Aqua Painter.

The background paper is Rose Red prints paper, with some Barely Banana underneath that's stamped with the flourish from Baroque Motifs in So Saffron. I hope my Mum likes it and has a good birthday!